– you name it, I'll veganize it!

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It seemed like a good idea when I bought it, but fact is, everyday by the time I have walked or cycled to work, the carrier bag I have carefully wrapped the tub in is always full of liquid.

I tried looking into packet soups, but the choice for vegans is pretty rubbish, most contain milk in one form or another. And the problem with tinned soup? I can’t eat a whole tin but half a tin isn’t enough!

You can either make the soup directly in the container you are going to eat it out of (e.g. bowl, or a mug or whatever) or you can put the ingredients in a Tupperware tub and transfer into your bowl / mug when you’re ready to eat it. Either way, the method is really easy!

Into your container, add the miso, nori, tofu and spring onion. If adding mushroom, make sure it is chopped into small chunks as they will float!

Next, gently stir the mixture whilst pouring the water on top (the easiest way is to use the kettle). You need to make sure the miso dissolves and mixes in without pulverizing the tofu into pulp.

Me and the bestie (aka @lalabrownie if you’re on Twitter) enjoyed a vegan pilgrimage to Scotland last week. Using her hometown, Livingstone, as a base we had a couple of days out in Edinburgh and a day in Glasgow. I can’t believe that the birthplace of the deep fried Mars bar and haggis have such amazing vegan joints! Seriously, just look on www.happycow.net!

So, the highlights in Edinburgh:The Baked Potato Shop on Cockburn St where I had the most amazing tattie of my life. It was filled with vegan haggis and topped with a sweetcorn curry. Thank goodness Lala knew to only order a small. I practically rolled around the landmarks of the city after nomming down this beast!:

I was also super happy after a visit to Real Foods where I finally found the little squashy-pumpkin thing that I have been scouring the streets of Cheshire for after I sampled one in Croatia.

And last but not least, we visited Jordan Valley Wholefoods where I filled a carrier bag with treats for the train ride home. Tres impressed with the selection available!

In Glasgow, we had a fantastic (and ridiculously good value for money) meal at Mono. I had a salami, red onion, pepper and cheeze pizza with a side of beer battered onion rings. Lala had moussaka which had a creamy nut based topping and looked very tasty. We both had the BIGGEST portion of sticky toffee pudding and vanilla ice-cream that I have ever seen! Aww man, it was soooo good!(We met Lala’s wee Auntie as well and she had a seitan burger… but I didn’t get a piccie, boo).

When I got home to Cheshire-land, the fella decided he had missed me so much that he wanted to take me out for tea at the vegetarian restaurant, Sanskruti. It was my 3rd visit to this amazing restaurant and I was so happy that omni hubby wanted to revisit. We both had the veggie kebabs for starter, then for main he had a massive dosa and I had the kaju karela with a side of onion rice. We both had vegan ice-cream for pud. Yet another fabulous belly-full!

Meat eaters beware… a sneaky veggie could EASY trick you with these tasty bad boys 😉

My curry and rice and the edge of the Hubby’s massive dosa

Vegan ice-cream! Neapolitan at the front and mango and raspberry at the back.

So, after 4 full days of uber-scoffing, I decided that tonight I needed a light tea. Since I had some veg to use up and well as a can of coconut milk, I decided to go for a Thai themed soup.

… I didn’t even want to buy sweet potatoes this shopping trip, but how could I resist?!

But what to do with it? Wedges? Chips? Mash? Maybe, but surely such a giant spud is worthy of better things?

Like an edible soup bowl! Filled with a lovely spicy orange soup, made with butternut squash, carrots, orange peppers and of course sweet potato flesh. And some black beans and pearl barley to give the soup some bite.

The trickiest part of this recipe was hollowing out the potato. It reminded me of pumpkin carving at Halloween. In fact, this recipe would probably make quite a festive spooky dish since its orange.

If you don’t like spicy food, hold back the chilli. I thought it had a kick that hit the spot but the hubby struggled to eat his!

Recipe (serves two with tonnes of soup left over…):

1 x giant sweet potato (or a couple of mini pumpkins would work as well)

1 x cup finely chopped carrots

3 x spring onions (sliced)

The hollowed out flesh of the sweet potato (around 3 cups worth)

1 x tsp dried thyme leaves

¼ x tsp chopped fresh chilli

¾ x tsp white pepper

1 x tsp ground cumin

1 x tsp paprika

1 x tsp smoked paprika

1 x tsp grated nutmeg

1 x medium onion (cut into quarters)

2 x cups coarsely chopped squash

1 x orange pepper

x medium onion

¼ x cup pearl barley1

¾ x cup dried black beans (soaked overnight)

m1 x veggie stock cube

1.5 x L water

Veggie oil

Method:

Put the squash, pepper and onion pieces onto a lightly greased baking tray and roast at 180oC for 20 minutes or until soft but golden round the edges.

In a pan, boil the black beans and pearl barley until tender.

In a large pan, sauté the carrots, spring onions, thyme and sweet potato in a pan and cook on a medium heat until everything begins to turn brown.

Add the water, stock cube and spices and stir before bringing to the boil.

Drop to a simmer and cook until all the veg is soft.

Add the roast veg and simmer for 5 minutes longer.

Take off the heat and using a hand blender, whiz until smooth.

Add the cooked beans and pearly barley. Set to one side and re-heat when ready to serve.

Slice the sweet potato in half and scoop out the middles to create a bowl shape. This requires a bit of muscle!

The potato will take around 45 minutes to cook at 180oC depending on size. For the first 25 mins I left a scrunched up piece of foil in the centres to make sure the middle stayed soft. If you’re feeling confident you could make the soup whilst the bowls cook.

Serve by ladling soup into each sweet potato bowl and garnish with soya cream and rocket if you want to be fancy.

So, regular visitors may have noticed that my blog has completely changed! GoDaddy decided not to support their blogging software anymore so our computer genius of a best man sorted me out on Word Press.

Overall I’m happy, my posts look a lot better and it gave me the kick up the arse that I needed to getting round to creating a logo. However I’m sad that I’ve lost all my previous comments and rankings on Google (I was the 3rd hit on Google when searching for a “vegan pork pie”!). Never mind, we can rebuild it, WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

It was quite funny re-visiting all my old posts though, back before I made the jump towards veganism and when I thought I was going to make regular posts about my crochet projects…!

Also humbling to think my blog hadn’t long been on the go when my Dad had a stroke. I’m happy to report that he is doing fantastically! He has lost over 4st in weight, gone back to work 3 days a week and has been given the all-clear to drive again. Also since his stroke was caused by a bleed and not a clot, he has had brain scans which have shown that his risk of a repeat attack are negligible 🙂 Hoorah!

So, to celebrate, here’s my veganized recipe for Hot and Sour soup!

I think it tastes quite authentic to the restaurant version. Also the hubby managed to find some prawn-less crackers in a Chinese supermarket we visited in York, so I fried up a batch and served on the side. Yum!

Boring sounding title, since it’s essentially “soup and bread”, but bear with me!

(Please excuse the chip in my plate!)

I had quarter of a white cabbage left that I had bought for salads. Unfortunately I get bored of salad as much as I hate wasting food so I decided to make soup. Can’t have soup without bread so since I accidentally bought far too much bread flour the last time I attempted internet grocery shopping….well, the rest is food history!

This soup is creamy, flavoursome, warming and amazingly still vegan. The bread was light and tasty with the type of chewy crust you just have to tear using your gritted front teeth! Delicious with a smearing of vegan spread or a bit of vegan mayo.

Smokey bean, potato and cabbage soup:

Ingredients:

2 x tablespoons olive oil

2 x large white potatoes

¼ x shredded white cabbage

1 x tin pinto beans

½ large white onion (chopped)

4 x cloves garlic (de-germed and
minced)

800 x ml vegetable stock

2 x teaspoons smoked paprika

1 x teaspoon soup

Black pepper to taste.

Method:

Heat up the oil in a large, heavy pan. Chop up the potato into chunks (skins included – that’s where the healthy good sh*t is!) and add to the oil. Pop a lid over the pan and cook the potatoes until they get to that stage where they begin to stick to the bottom of the pan. Stir and scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden-spoon and cook for a further 5 mins.

Add the onions and garlic and keep stirring / scraping until the onions go soft and translucent.

Add the beans, paprika, salt and black pepper and give it all a good stir before adding the cabbage. Stir some more and add the stock.

Simmer for 15mins (or until the potatoes are soft), stirring every now and then to make sure that the bottom doesn’t catch.

Allow to cool a bit before using a hand held whizzer to half-whizz the soup (I like to leave chunky bits so that I don’t get booored whist eating it).

Reheat before serving in a bowl with a hearty side serving of…..

Seedy
wholemeal bread:

Ingredients:

500 x g wholemeal strong bread flour

2 x teaspoons of dried active yeast

1 x teaspoon sugar

300 x ml warm, but not hot water (I mix kettle-boiled water with cold from the tap).

1 x teaspoon salt

1.5 x tablespoons vegan spread

Seeds to top (I used pumpkin, sunflower, flax and sesame)

Dissolve the sugar in the warm water. Sprinkle the yeast over the top and leave for 15mins until a frothy foam starts to form.

In a large bowl (preferably not a metal one) add the flour and using a wooden spoon, stir in the salt.

Add the vegan spread and rub into the flour to create fine breadcrumbs. Try to leave a little distance between the bowl and your hands whilst rubbing so try and make the crumbs airy.

Create a well in the centre of the floury-crumb mix and add the yeasty water mix. Stir in slowly until a soft sticky dough forms. If the dough is too wet and sticky, add a little more flour.

Knead either by hand or using a food mixture with a kneading attachment for 10 mins. Leave to prove for 30 mins. Then knead again for another 10 mins or until the dough is smooth and springy and elasticky.

Different recipes will tell you different proving times, but next I whacked my dough into a greased, non-stick bread loaf tin, sprinkled with seeds (I pressed them in slightly to make them stick) and left in a warm place for 20 hours (i.e. tea time the next day!). The mixture had more than doubled by the time I got round to baking it, lovely!

When ready to cook, stick a baking tray on the bottom of the oven and heat up to 200oC. Pop the bread into the oven and quickly (but carefully!) pour some water into the baking tray and shut the door pronto. The steam helps to produce that beautiful chewy crust, whilst the bread stays soft and light.

Bake for 30mins (cover with a bit of tinfoil if the top starts to brown too quickly – I had to after around 20mins). Allow to cool slightly before turning the loaf out of the tin onto a wire cooling rack.

I waited until the bread was just about cool enough to touch, before hacking into thick delicious slices. Top tip – it was much easier to cut when the loaf was first turned upside down.

Warm, freshly baked bread dipped into steamy-hot thick and satisfying soup. Perfect comfort food now that the weather is starting to get cooler.

I’ve not written a blog for a good few days. The reason? My poor old Dad had a stroke last Sunday 🙁 Well, I say old, he’s only 55. I think that too much stress has finally caught up with him – so let that be a lesson to those of you who put their work before their own health!!!

Anyway, he lost the use of his right-hand side but fortunately he is beginning to regain control of it. He’s very weak though. I wanted to make him a little stress ball so he could use it to build up the strength in his hand. Unfortunately the result of my hard and love-led labour was even more special than my owl phone cover! Haha, aw well, can’t blame a Daddy’s girl for trying……

I basically followed this pattern:http://www.craftdesigns4you.com/freecrochetball.htm although I made a few simple changes to the way the colours worked. The pattern instructs you to make two halves of a ball which you sew together, then you add stuffing before you finish the last few stitches. I figured that stuffing alone wasn’t going to be squidgy enough for a stress ball, so I also added a balloon which I filled with flour via the use of a funnel.

Unfortunately I think my bad sewing let me down. I’ve never been any good at sewing! Hopefully Dad will see the funny side and appreciate my good intentions!

I’ve also made him some soup because as you can imagine, the hospital food isn’t exactly the tastiest cuisine on the planet. I made up the recipe as I went a long and stupidly didn’t write the quantities down, which was a shame as its rather good, even if I do say so myself!

I basically grated the carrot and plonked it in a pan with just enough stock to cover, then simmered for a bit. Then I added finely diced onion and simmered until the onion started to go translucent. Then I added the chickpeas and rice along with a jug-full of water. Once the soup started to simmer again, I added diced spuds and simmered away until everything was soft.

Then I added black pepper and smoked paprika, allowed the soup to cool then whizzed the f*ck out of it! (Didn’t want any lumpy bits for my Daddy to choke on!).

Whizzing made the soup a little thick, so I mixed in some soya milk until it was a nice consistency, then warmed it up again to boiling point.

The best thing about this soup was it tastes quite nice once cooled down to a luke-warm temperature. Which means if I take a flask into the hospital, it won’t matter if I can’t blag access to a microwave 🙂